MERSEYSIDE school St Wilfred's which will be reborn when it joins up with a neighbouring secondary next year is bowing out in style – after inspectors ripped up its failing tag.

The success story belongs to St Wilfrid’s Catholic high school, in Litherland which refused to lie down when Sefton council bosses announced in 2010 it intended to wield the axe.

It came in the face of academic failings, dwindling pupil numbers and associated financial problems.

St Wilfrid’s became the first in Sefton to be placed in special measures – an Ofsted notice handed in extreme circumstances to failing schools.

However last month parents and governors at St Wilfrid’s and Bootle’s nearby St George of England Engineering College – which the council also wanted to close – won their right to cut free from local authority control and run their own “free” school.

The new school, called The Hawthornes, will now open on the St Wilfrid’s site in September 2012.

And St Wilfrid’s, a community asset for more than 50 years, will end on a high next summer because government officials have concluded it is no longing failing.

Inspectors have told the school its improvements have been so dramatic it has managed the rare feat of shooting up two ratings and is now classed as “good”.

Three quarters of lessons were rated good or outstanding.

Today Stewart Almond, the interim head who led the revival, said an intensive focus on teaching and how lessons helped the school’s transformation. This included carrying out internal inspections, lesson observations, and peer mentoring so teachers could share lesson plans.

Lessons are less regimented and in Spanish pupils are encouraged to speak the language throughout the lesson.

Asked if the success was bitter-sweet, Mr Almond said: “There is an element of showing people this was never a bad school and the school is now where it should be.”